Page 17 of Monsters of Desire and Nightmares of Passion

Khal rises to his full stature as if trying to impress me. His eyes glow red. His body is surrounded by tendrils of darkness. This is how he should look, with his large maw and sharp teeth, long claws, and three sets of arms that make it hard to beat him at arm wrestling. Khal is strong. I don’t dare underestimate him, but we both know what the options are.

“Are you challenging me?”

It’s my turn to show my true face. My upper body is that of a human, with strong muscles, only I don’t have legs. My lower half is a blend between a bull and a scorpion. My hard tale is spiked with a poisoning needle I’ve used more than once in battle. My six legs extend. My arms cross across my chest. I keep a careful eye on this creature, my brother, who believes he’s entitled to make the choice for us.

My voice booms. “You’ll have to kill me to be alpha. I’m weak, but I still have enough in me to break your neck.”

I see the signs of submission in Khal’s eyes. He lowers his head and leans it to the side in a show of submission.

“No, I don’t want to challenge you.”

“Khal, explain yourself.”

“I don’t want to break away, but we’re dying. Ivy’s never going to return. She’s gone. No matter how many dreams we intrude, no matter how we fuck her, what we tell her, we can’t tell her anything. We’re going to die. None of this makes no sense. I want us to find another person with the sight. That girl at the clinic is in pain. If we slip into her mind, we’ll be able to help her, and she can be a part of us.”

Pure, white-hot anger fills me. My fist connects with Khal’s face before I can stop myself. Grey gore falls from his face with each new hit I land.

“How can you talk about this so casually?”

“I’m not you. You’re obsessed with her. You’d rather cease existing than accept what happened. I can’t.”

I look down at Khal. My mighty body is on top of his. My fists and legs trashed him. All the hate and fear I feel dripped from my consciousness.

“I’ll never, ever give up on Ivy. If you wish so much to be free, here you go.”

I close my eyes and picture the connection between me and the guys. It’s like a red thread, but the thread keeps us together. It’s fueled by Ivy, by her heart, by her power, and her love for us. She still loves me. She has to, otherwise I won’t be able to sneak into her dreams.

I take a deep breath and focus on my connection with Khal.

“As your alpha, I free you. You’re now a lonely shadow, no longer a part of this triangle. You can do what you want.”

Khal shrieks so loud. I’ve never heard anyone make this noise. This is a truth only alphas know. No one else understands that we have a choice to push away a member of our group.

“It’s what you want. You’re free now.”

I inhale, ignoring the weeping Khal who regressed to the size of a shadow. I walk over to Mrez, who had watched the entire scene, and put my arm around his neck, cradling him close to me.

“We don’t need him. Let’s go.”

Cutting Khal loose hurt me. He was strong, and our triangle will miss him. It felt almost as if I had cut off one of my legs and the spot burned and bled. There was nothing else I could do. Khal wanted to leave, he wanted to start anew. He was not in love with Ivy since she was a teenager. He was not the one she lost her virginity to and was not the man she kissed first.

I was.

And I love her with all that is left of me. I’ll cease to exist. I’ll become nothing before giving up on her. Even years after I forget who I am, after I forget my own name, I’ll still know hers because Ivy will be on my lips. She will be my dying prayer.

Mrez weeps softly. It hurt him as much as it hurt me.

“We’ll get her back. I know it. Let him walk away. We don’t need this type of negativity in our minds.”

Ivy

I wake up with Powder on my chest, hissing.

“What?”

He keeps looking at some point on the wall behind my bed and hisses. I push him away.

“I appreciate you being my alarm clock, but I can get up on my own, thank you very much.”

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